Pretorn Jeans: A look at Life
by Neda1
Summary: Two years after the final war, Heero has found his niche in (college) life, and Duo comes for a visit. Examines the slowly growing relationship between Heero and Duo through average life and circumstances. Shounen ai, multi-part.


_Author: Neda_

Title: Pre-torn Jeans

Chapter 1

1+2

Warning: Butchering of the American Eagle name. Unromantic almost to the point of gen, but will be shounen ai in later chapters. Post-Endless Waltz, Duo POV.

Summary: Two years after the final war, Heero has found his niche in (college) life, and Duo comes for a visit. Examines the slowly growing relationship between Heero and Duo through average life and circumstances.

Author's notes: I'm not sure what it is with and long dashes. No matter how I upload this document, the long dashes end up disappearing from the story. So, wherever a sentence or something abruptly ends without a long dash, please, know that it's isn't my idiocy or ignorance, but the fault of my text document or FFN.

_-x-_

_Ring._

_Ring._

_Ring._

_Ring._

_Ring._

_Ring._

"_Heero Yuy. I'm busy. Leave a messa"_

Click. _"Maxwell?"_

The annoyed, faintly surprised voice brings back a bizarre nostalgia. I grin at the face on the screen of the vidphone (still the same irritated, slightly constipated expression with the matching scowling eyes) and say, "Hey, Heero. What's up?"

The cross expression shifts to something less severe. This would be the equivalent of a smile on anyone else._"Thought you were a telemarketer."_

The mere fact that he has uttered a whole sentences is a sign that he's at least glad to see me. Great. Wait. Telemarketer?

"Whah…?"

"_It's dinner time," _he grunts._"But then I saw the name on the caller ID."_

Oh, duh. "Ha, sorry about that."

He hums an affirmative, which, if it were anyone but Heero, would mean, "Oh, no problem, it's okay. I was just afraid I'd have to get roped into buying insurance or weight loss pills, but I'm glad to see it's you, and how _are _things?"

"Right, so. I'll be in your neighborhood next week. I was thinking we could hang."

x-

I'm pleasantly wistful, after walking into the patio of the restaurant, to see Heero Yuy, a menu propped up against his drink, looking up at the waitress with an expression of what appears to be crabbiness. Some things never change.

I silently stroll over to his table and slide into a chair across from him. I set down my suitcase, and take off my backpack. I look at him. I smile. I say, "Hi."

He mumbles, "Hn."

Still has that rakish charm of his, I see. The women must swoon at his eloquent, ever-growing vocabulary.

This entire situation is familiar. I am sitting with a man who I allied with, shot at, been threatened by, and went to school with.

But then, the situation is also unfamiliar. For one, this is the first time I have ever had lunch at a little bistro with him. I have never seen him order a drink from a waitress, or, for that matter, even interact with ordinary civilians. I've certainly _never_ sat with him in the veranda of a restaurant while sunlight blinded me through a hole in the umbrella of our table.

This is the first time I've seen him in nearly two years.

The unfamiliar definitely outweighs the familiar, actually, and for a whole awkward minute I'm not sure how to carry on a conversation. It's weird. We're not going to discuss battle tactics. We're not planning out missions. It's just a meeting, between old friends.

No, it's more like we're meeting for the first time.

The waitress unknowingly saves me. As I scramble for something to say, she hands me a menu, and pronounces, "Hello, sir, I'm Marie and I'll be your waitress for this afternoon. What would you like to drink?"

"Um, coffee, thank you."

"Great, and I'll have your drinks out in a moment." She hurries off.

"So," I state. "It's been two years, huh? What's been going on in your life?"

Heero looks at me. Yeah, maybe it is a little bit optimistic of me to expect him to answer a question as vague as that.

"I mean, what do you do for a living these days?"

"I'm a college student."

Well, well. Frankly, this is an utter surprise. It was strange enough to see him in a school uniform back when we were both fifteen, but college? That's transcended strange. But I'm not being fair; he's a normal guy. I shouldn't expect things to be the same as when I last saw him, at seventeen.

Of course I voice my surprise. "Really? That's weird. But cool. What's your major?"

"Political Journalism," he murmurs, and runs a hand through his hair. Doesn't look like he even bothered to brush it before leaving the house.

I don't even try to control the whistle that comes from my mouth. "No way, journalist, huh?" I'm astonished. I'm floored. "That's crazy. I mean, now that you've said it I can actually see that as your career. But I'm just so used to"

"… Yeah."

"Wow." Actually, I don't just see itit makes perfect sense. The guy would probably make an astounding journalist. "And what exac"

"H_ey sexy, let me out of your pocket. Hey sexy, let me out of your pocket. He sex"_

The hell?

Heero looks down and reaches into his back pocket; pulls out a mobile vid-phone and sets it on the table.

"Nice ring tone," I murmur, and he says, "Hnng. Hello?"

Hnng, I believe, can be interpreted as his self-consciousness at the ring.

"It's Quatre," he mutters as an aside to me, and looks back down at the vidphone.

I think, _Quatre_?

"_Hey, Heero. How are you?"_

"Hi... Good."

"_That's great. So I was looking through my library and I found that book we were talking about yesterday"_

Yesterday?

"_It's called _The Stabilization of Regular Childbirth in the Colonies: A History of Natural Child Birth and Test Tube Prototypes,_ by Asmil Irenhovsky."_

"Great. Sounds interesting."

Heero Yuy has maintained contact with Quatre Raberba Winner, and they are apparently continuing a conversation that they had **_yesterday._**

"_Yeah, it should be available in normal bookstores, but I have a first edition which was printed about forty years ago, so I'm not sure of its availability. If you can't find it I'll just lend it to you next time I see you."_

"That's fine, I'll try to find it… Duo's here."

"_The Stabilization of Regular Childbirth in the Colonies, _huh?" I say sarcastically, and stick my head over the phone so Quatre can see my face. Since I'm sitting opposite Heero, I'm upside down to Quatre. "Sounds interesting,"

"_Hi, Duo."_

"Hey, man. What's up?"

"_Eh. Being run dry by my line of work as usual."_

"Yeah, I can see how being the richest, most influential figure on colony L4 can get tiring sometimes. All that power can sure get boring."

Heero lightly shoves my head away from the phone so he can be seen too. "Shut up, Duo."

I nudge over a bit so Heero's and my heads are side to side and Quatre can see both of us.

Quatre laughs over the phone. "_Clearly, Duo, you've never been a colony representative and younger brother to twenty-nine sisters."_

"I'll say."

"_So, what are you two up to today?"_

"Lunch," Heero asserts. "Duo is in town."

"Yeah, I'm crashing at his place."

"_Ah, I see. Well, I'd better let you get back to your lunch. Actually, I have to get back to my work. I called because I was trying to procrastinate on memorizing a speech I'm supposed to make at a conference later in the evening. I'll talk to you both later!"_

"Later, Quatre." I wave. "And get to work, slacker." In my head, I'm thinking, Quatre calls _Heero_ when he's trying to procrastinate? What kind of conversations could they possibly have?

"Bye," says Heero, and shuts the phone off.

I look at Heero. "So. That ring tone, eh?"

"Hnng. Thought it was funny." He looks down at his menu.

That hnng again. And then there's the fact that Yuy has a sense of humor, but I'll let that line of conversation pass for now.

"You've been keeping up with Quatre, huh?"

"Yeah."

That's fine. He can talk to Quatre all he wants. Hell, Quatre and **I** call and email each other every day, too. Same with the rest of the gang, except. But… But.

"But you haven't kept up with me."

Heero looks up in what appears to be surprise. "We're having lunch together, aren't we?"

No pretense of a smile; I frown. "This is the first time we've seen each other in **two years**, Yuy."

I pick up the menu that was set out in front of me and open and close it in annoyance. He opens his mouth to respond, but before he can the waitress walks up with our drinks.

Water with a lemon for Heero, a coffee with a plastic container of cream on the side for me.

"Here are your drinks, and have you both decided what to order yet?"

"You're the one who never calls," says Heero.

Shit, I haven't even looked through the menu yet. "I did! All the time. But if I call you one day, it's your responsibility to call me back the next day. Or the next week, month, whatever. You never called back all those times I actually tried speak with you."

"Guys? Your orders?"

Heero just looks at me, then patiently says, "Duo."

I'm staring at the menu and avoiding his eyes. _Duo._ Should I go with the hamburger or the chicken wings? _Duo. _Or the Soup of the Day? _Duo._

Fine, he's right, he has a point. He's socially incapable of speaking over the phone without awkwardness in the conversation, I get it.

Then he follows it up with this: "If you wanted to cut off contact with me, then fine. I wasn't going to **chase after you.**_"_

"Hello? Orders? Food? Should I come back later?"

"**Cut off all contact? **Me? What about the emails I sent? I know you're not a phone person, Yuy, but you could have at least replied to the emails." I slam the menu closed distractedly and stare at him.

He states, "I never got any emails."

There's a lull in the argument. The waitress takes advantage of the cessation and breaks in before either of us can say anything else. "Gentlemen, would you like to order?"

I have to hand it to Marie, she's being very polite, considering that we're both ignoring her. "Go away," I snap in her general direction, and turning to Heero, proclaim, "Well. I sent emails."

The waitress glares at both of us, then annoyedly abandons us to our contention.

"I didn't get them," Heero asserts.

I sip at my coffee, which I hadn't bothered to pour the cream in, and then bang it against the table in somewhat more than distaste. "I'm not **lying**, if that's what you mean."

"Chill out, Maxwell. I know you aren't."

Look at us. We haven't seen each other in two years and we haven't talked in one. Now we're together, having lunch, and minutes into the conversation we're already in an argument. Heero is right. More importantly:

"Did you just say 'chill out'?" My ears must have been deceiving me. Does he even know what 'chill out' means?

"Hn." Well, now I'm back on familiar grounds. The infamous grunted 'hn,' which can be used as a sound of assent, aggravation, disinterest, abstraction, boredom... It's universal Heero Yuy speech.

"You're different," I comment bemusedly.

'Chill out' is something I expect myself to say, not him. The only things I ever anticipate out of his mouth are "I'll kill you," or "mission accepted," or "I will self destruct."

Damn. No they're not. Those phrases were just typical of him during the war, and I don't expect him to live by them for life. It wouldn't make sense. But "chill out?" Next thing I know he'll call me "dude," and that would just be creepy.

Heero looks at me in inquiry, as if to say, _"Different? How so?"_

I say, "Less uptight. More casual."

Heero frowns blandly and raises an eyebrow. "Because I have a stick up my ass all the time."

Sarcasm. **Sarcasm**.Oh, what has the world come to?

"Yes. You still have something up your bum, actually, but it appears to have degenerated from being a massive tree trunk, to being a four by eight board."

And just like that, the tension between us has abated. Our previous dispute melts away into inanity, and I'm finally free to grin broadly.

Because it seems appropriate, I say, "You're acting your age."

It's apparently the fitting thing to say, because Heero's smirk widens and turns into a small, barely there smile. He's probably proud of himself to have accomplished that deed. If I know Heero, it probably took a long time for him to get accustomed to a life without missions or war. It took us all a long time.

Yeah, he is acting his age. He's acting like a nineteen year old adolescent should, albeit, a mature, blasé, slightly introverted teenager. He's smooth; probably gets stalked by girls in school and hates every moment of the attention.

Keeping my dangling smile, I ask, "Anyway, how about the others? You're keeping up correspondence with them, too?"

"Yeah."

"That's great." I know Quatre is the L4 colony representative and head of the Winner estate and enterprise. Trowa travels from month to month around the colonies and Earth with his circus, and Wufei works with the Preventors. I keep up with all of them through emails, phone calls, and the occasional visit.

I inquire, "And Relena?" Her, I rarely talk to. We weren't all that close to begin with, and I see her on the news all the time anyway. I have a sneaking suspicion that she didn't like me when we first met—this could possibly stem from the time I threatened Heero for trying to kill her.

She's a bit weird.

How dare I threaten Heero?

He leans back and rests an elbow on the back of his chair, looking immensely casual. To me, it's like he was replaced by aliens. He discloses, "She's fine," then adds, "Occasionally, when there's a particularly important conference, she calls and asks me to secure the department for possible hostile intrusion."

A ray of sunshine reflects off his hair and skin and bounces into my face, and I scrunch up my eyes. Shielding my face with a hand, I ask, "You two aren't an item yet?"

"Yet?" Heero raises both eyebrows in inquiry. "Should we be?"

I lean over and poke him in the ribs. He inhales violently and nearly falls off the chair as he jerks to try to avoid me. A cloud shifts and sunlight stops reflecting into my face. Even the ray of light from the hole in the umbrella abates.

I retract the finger back to my side and wiggle it. **Interesting. **"Are you dense or something? That girl is crazy for you. Or was, I don't know."

Brushing off at the place where I poked him, he glares at me—at the poke or because of the Relena comments?and mutters, "Yeah."

"So? You aren't together?"

He's so uncomfortable with this topic. I can tell because his face is expressionless. He sighs and drones that, "She isn't my type."

Not his type? Not his type? "I repeat: The girl is crazy for you. How is she **not** your type?"

He's silent and staring uncomfortably at me. Right, I'm being vague again. "Give me an example."

This he seems to warm up to. "She's so... prim and proper. Naïve. And clingy."

I just plop my arm onto the table, lean my face into my hand, and smirk at him in expectation.

Heero raises his nose into the air, and pompously states, "Oh, Heero, how nice of you to visit. Would you like some more tea? How many sugars? I'm so glad you're here. Here you are, and the coaster is on the little table to your left."

The impression of Relena, in Heero's monotone voice, is so absurd that my shoulders shake as I try to stifle the small laughing attack that threatens. I don't think he was joking.

Heero breaks into that small hardly perceptible smile that he does. Maybe he **was** being droll.

"Ah..." I sniff and push my bangs out of my eyes, laughter still coming on at intervals. "That makes no sense. There's nothing wrong with the girl, unless you have some sort of hatred toward coasters."

"I don't like to use coasters, but that isn't why she's not my type."

"Yeah, you're right. She really likes you, but I don't think you'd make a great couple." Couple? The entire relationship would consist of Relena chattering and Heero not listening. Their ideals differ, their backgrounds conflict, their personalities are completely incompatible; I can't even see them working in an "opposites attract" way.

"Duo," says Heero quietly, effectively changing the subject."Why are you here?"

Never was one for tact, that boy.

I will now refer to _Webster's Yuy to Human Dictionary_: "Why are you here? " hwï áér y?u?hér inquiry (ca. not known) : **1** Question, generally asked gruffly, which in fact queries into the interviewee's well being. **2 **Gladness at associate being there but confusion as to why **3 **Command.i.e. "Get the fuck out of here before you screw up the mission and doom the gundams." **4 **Genuine curiosity. i.e. "So, what brings you to these parts?" **5** Question as is. Why are you here?

Using context clues and Heero's (blank) facial expression as interpretation, I gather that in this case, the meaning is an assemblage of definition one, two, and four.

Explanation time. I didn't tell Heero anything over the phone—now I'm just kind of winging it and hoping for the best. I open my mouth and murmur, "You know the salvage yard business I'm running with Hilde?"

"The Oz girl? Yes."

"Right," I sigh and flick my bangs away from my eyes again. "I was in that line of work for several years."

Heero gets a comprehending look in his eye like he knows where this is going. "Was?"

I wave the question off. "Business was just okay—I had enough to eat and pay rent, but it's not exactly a life I want for the rest of my days. I'm out of that line of business now. Hilde owns the place. And I want a career."

Hilde was sad to see me go, but I think she was equally as glad that we no longer had to split profits.

Heero says, "So you came to L1?"

"It's definitely the opposite of L2. I grew up there all my life, Heero, but the fact remains that compared to all the other colonies, L2 is just the ghetto. The only jobs there are janitorial, mechanical, or robbery-related. I was a thief as a kid, I've quit my mechanic job, and I sure as hell will not be cleaning anyone's bathroom anytime in this life."

"You want to find work on L1?"

I open the container of cream and pour it into the coffee."Chuh. No, not work. I was taking part-time courses at the community college in our town on L2, but the school is a slum. Every college on that colony is." I lightly chuck the cream bucket to Heero's end of the table and take a sip, swallow. Eurgh. Coffee's gotten cold. "But the area of employment I'm interested in isn't available there, so I'm applying for university here."

I'm getting ready to pour my cold coffee into a plant a few feet away, but Heero intercepts before I can. Taking the cup from my hand, sets it back down on the table, and glowering, scolds me. "You're ghettoer than all the people on L2 put together, you idiot. Don't do that."

"Har-de-har har. Anyway," I say, and he picks up the empty cream bucket and flicks it back at me, then raises his water for a sip. The bucket bounces off my face.

What I have to say next is sensitive. If I word this incorrectly, he'll get annoyed.

Using beautiful articulation and a perfect pitch of voice, I say, "Heero, when I said 'let's hang out for a few days' to you on the phone, I meant 'can I live with you for a few weeks while I get settled in?'"

Heero snorts into his water.

I plaster a pleading look on my face and he just rolls his eyes. I'm so faking. I wipe the look off myself and smile entreatingly. "Just a little while. I need to apply to a university and get a part-time job so I can save up for course dues and rent."

You'd think we'd get payed for saving the world and the colonies numerous times during the war, but no, I'm still poor. Still shopping second-hand and taking five-minute showers to save on the water bill.

Nah, that last part was a lie. My hair takes forever to get clean.

"What are you planning on majoring in?"

My smile gets bigger. Someday I'm going to have the best job ever. "Animation." Well, and I want to be a comic book artist, but I figure I don't need to have a college degree to draw.

Heero snorts again. "I go to Baldasarre University. It has a good art department; you can apply there."

"Cool. Getting in shouldn't be a problem." My grades are more than decent.

Now, I just need his answer.

Heero doesn't appear to want to give it. I look at him expectantly and instead of giving me a response he leans over to the side of the table, points at my backpack and suitcase, and asks, "Is this all you brought with you?"

I nod, and he stands up, reaches into his back pocket, pulls out some money, sets it on the table, and picks up my suitcase. Then he drawls, "Come on. I'll show you where my apartment is, and you can drop your luggage off."

The reason we had met at the restaurant was so he could show me the way to his place, as I'm unfamiliar with the cities and streets of L1 colony.

I beam at him and push my chair back, getting to my feet. "Cool. Let's go. And let's catch a flick after we leave my stuff there, yeah?"

"Hn," he hums, and starts waking out of the patio. I pick up my backpack and follow him while I shoulder it.

"Argh, Yuy. Is the sun always this bright on the colony? L2 is all clouds and smog."

"Yes," says Heero. "You know," he begins, changing the subject, "I come to this restaurant all the time. Now I the staff most likely hates me, because of you."

I laugh. "You'd better not come here anymore, or that waitress might do something bad to your food."

"Hn." Interpreted, that's "_Damn. Gee, thanks."_

I glance sideways at him. I poke him for the second time in a day. He jerks away violently. I grin.

"Stop."

"No." Poke.

Glare.

"You're ticklish, aren't you?"

"No."

Poke, poke. "Yes you are."

"No, I'm not."

Poke, poke, poke, poke poke poke poke, "Yes you are! You're holding it in! Come on, laugh." Pokepokepokepokepokepokepoke.

Heero growls. "No. If you want me to kick you out of my apartment before you ever step foot in it, then continue poking me."

I stop, let my hands drop back down to my sides and glance at him. "Okay."

Oh, I know he's ticklish. I'll get him when he least—**What. The. Hell. **

Having just gotten my first good luck at him standing up, I've imminently become aware of his clothes.

"Heero, are you wearing Colonial Eagle jeans and an Urban Outfitters shirt?"

I know this, because the jeans are obviously pre-torn, and the shirt proclaims, "Urban Outfitters," in large letters.

Heero looks down at his pants. "Yes."

"Right." I breath in consternation. "How the hell can you afford those clothes if you're a college student?"

"I work part-time taking commissions for web design. It doesn't make much, though." Can he get anymore smug? Yes, yes he can, because now he's smirking.

Whoa. "Doesn't make much? I know Colonial Eagle isn't exactly high-end fashion, but for a guy living on your own and going to school full-time, shouldn't you not be able to afford these clothes?"

"Hm," he says. "No. I only buy from these stores when there's a sale."

"There's never a major sale at those stores," I mutter in irritation, trying to keep pace with his strides as we walk on the sidewalk.

"Yes," Heero asserts. "When GAP has clearances all shirts are 9.99."

Damn. I shop second hand, or at the outlets that get out-of-season clothes from designer boutiques. I have to buy normal jeans, and wait for them to tear. He buys them **pre**-torn.

Heero will have to show me his shopping tactics one day—ugh, it's hard to think of Heero Yuy as a fashion expert.

Seems like only yesterday that he was wearing ugly spandex shorts and a green tank top. I voice this thought aloud, and he turns his face to me and glares, "It was five years ago. Spandex was acceptable then."

"Spandex is never acceptable," I snort, but he's right. Everyone wore Spandex in A.C. 195. Plus, the guy wasn't wearing the shorts to make a fashion statement; they were for simple mobility.

Heero hardens his glare and croaks, "You wore a priest outfit," in a 'you-should-talk' voice.

No fair. That outfit was for personal reasons. I doubt he had any sort of emotional attachment to his spandex. I wave my hand in the air disinterestedly. "Priest outfits are timeless."

"Not if you aren't a priest."

-x-

The things I most remember about Heero Yuy:

His forever annoyed facial expression. I used to joke that his face was stuck that way.

The spandex shorts. He always tucked the green tank top in, and it bunched in his shorts unattractively. Ew.

The short replies and crappy conversational skills.

His focus only on the mission, and nothing else.

He's just like I remember, minus the parts about war.

I've come to except the fact that the anal retentive facial expression he always has is natural, not calculated to look that way.

He doesn't wear that outfit anymore, but only because wearing it in A.C. 200 is the equivalent to donning a purple suit and an afro.

His replies are still short, and it's rare, although not unheard of, for him to start a topic of discussion.

There are no longer any missions for him to focus on, and he instead applies his extraordinary ability to concentrate to his everyday life.

I notice all this while spending the day with him.

After dropping my stuff off at the apartment, we go to see some retarded, currently popular action movie, during which I garble popcorn and make snide remarks at the implausibility of the plot, and he smirks at the idiocy of the film and tells me to shut up. We leave the theater in airy, bloated moods—good attitudes which only elitist disdain and nitpicking at a movie can bring.

Having skipped lunch, I'm hungry, and we stop at a fast food restaurant, order the over-priced congealed fat that is offered to us by the menu, and eat while conversing and strolling on the sidewalk. (I converse, he gives the occasional rare input.)

The thing I like most about where he lives as that apparently he doesn't need a car to get anywhere. His place is dead-center in the middle of the city, and many restaurants, movie theaters, shopping centers, and bars are withing walking distance. Heero says he has a car, but only uses it to get to and from university, and the super-store, when for whatever reason the local grocery store doesn't contain what is needed.

Around nine (L1 space colony time), I yawn and realize how tired I am, and we head back to Heero's place. He orders me to pay attention to the roads and streets so I can get around in the city, but I'm too drained to pay him any attention. Outer-space jet lag has finally gotten to me.

I'm practically falling asleep on my feet by the time we're up the stairs and at the doorstep. He reaches into a front pocket of his **stupid** pre-torn jeans and pulls out a set of keys, inserts one in the lock, and steps into the flat. I trudge slowly in after him, take off my shoes, and flip the light switch of the entrance hall, which Heero hadn't bothered with.

I yawn and take a good look around the abode for the first time. The darkness outside and the faint florescent light coming for the entrance makes it hard to see much. Couches, chairs, coffee table, TV, whatever. I'm too tired to take note of anything, except that surprisingly, it's messy. I walk into the living room and turn the light on there, too.

Heero had disappeared into what I assume to be his bedroom, and he walks back into the living room carrying two folded blankets and a pillow.

"I don't have a spare key under the welcome mat for safety reasons," he says, "But I'll get one made tomorrow."

"Cool," I say blearily. "Place's messy."

"Yeah." Heero looks around the room, in what could be a self conscious way but probably isn't.

"Thought you'd be anal about cleanliness. You used to be."

Heero shrugs. Then, "Shit, it's Oz! I have to get to my gundam. Damn, I've stumbled across a huge pile of my clothes in the dark and I can't get up. Ugh, and my hand just landed in a plate of last week's left over food."

I laugh exhaustedly. One, because it's funny, and two, because that happened to me once. He's making fun of me, but he has a point.

Now there's no war, and he's free to have his floor as cluttered as he wants.

"Just don't move anything around," Heero says as he hands me the blankets and sets the pillow on the end of the couch. "I have everything where I want it."

Tired. Tired. Tired. Ugh. "Thanks for letting me stay at your place, man."

"I was thinking," he grunts.

"Yeah?"

"Just live here. We can split the rent."

"What, permanently?"

"Sure."

The fact that Heero actually got around to asking me this is amazing. "Yeah, great."

"It's cheaper, and I believe, more advantageous. We'll split the rent, take turns paying for groceries. If you end up going to Baldasarre I can drive you, as you are not in possession of appropriate transportation facilities."

_There are no longer any missions for him to focus on, and he instead applies his extraordinary ability to concentrate to his everyday life._

It's battle-tactic Heero, everyone. Fully pose-able.

"Yeah, that's way more conventional. And less lonely."

"...Hnng."

I set the blankets on the couch and head to my suitcase, alloted in the entryway. "I'm going to get ready for bed."

There's no response as I rifle through my suitcase to find my pajamas and toothbrush, but Heero sits on the floor and begins clacking at his laptop, which, I just noticed, is sitting on the coffee table.

"Where's the bathroom?" I ask, and Heero wordlessly gestures. I shuffle down the hall, and open the first door I see. Broom closet. Next door's the bathroom. I pee, wash my hands—am pleasantly glad to find that Heero is the kind of person who utilizes soap—brush my teeth, and change.

As I amble back to the living room, Heero looks up. "I know why I didn't get your emails."

"Yeah?" I fix the pillow and unfold the blanket, then flop unceremoniously onto the couch. "Why's that? And am I gonna sleep on this couch forever?"

_Clack, clack, _then he closes the laptop and stands up. "Yes, unless we find a cheap sleeper sofa."

I close my eyes; I'm drifting off already. "Well? The emails?"

"They somehow got sent to my spam folder. There are five messages from you there, all dated one year ago."

I open my eyes. "The spam folder? The hell? Why?"

"Because AOL is a retard," Heero mutters, and shuts off the light. Opening the door of his bedroom, he says, "Good night."

Hn.

The door closes.

-x-

Something is tickling my cheeks. I can't ignore it anymore.

Agitated, I roughly sweep a hand over my face , trying to dislodge whatever it is.

The faint itching goes away for a second, but bounces right back, and this time it's in my nose.

Annoyed, I open my eyes to be accosted by the sight of brown tangled stuff.

What?

I shove the stuff away and sit up, blearily running a hand over my face, stopping at the temples and rubbing.

"Hey." It was Heero. He's sitting on the floor, back propped against the end of the couch where I was sleeping. Playing video games.

He doesn't even turn around when speaking to me, and I acknowledge his greeting with this alluring growl, "Your stupid god damned hair was in my face, moron."

He ignores me.

I shuffle to the bathroom and pee.

When I come back, tripping over several piles of clothes in the process, I note that he's cheerily playing Mr. Great-Great-Great-Great Grandson Pacman.

Cheerily, or as "cheery" as Heero gets.

"You're a morning person, aren't you?" I grumble, flopping back onto the couch.

He leans his head back on the couch so he can look at me, smirks, and says, "No. It's not morning."

Ugh. Damn jet lag.

Heero has a Playstation 8, an older version. Hot on the market now is Super Playstation 11.0.

How retro.

"What games d'you have?" I query, and he jerks his head to the cluttered stack of old-school games on the coffee table.

I reach over and grab them, shuffle through for a while, then drop a game into Heero's lap.

He puts it in, and about two hours pass pleasantly by as we play Halo 14. (What an easy game to beat.)

Presently I realize just how hungry I am and say so.

Heero points out the fridge and the pantry, respectively.

Opening the fridge is like opening the door to heaven.

Chocolate. All chocolate.

Cadbury, Godiva, York mints, pudding. Way back in a corner of a freezer, the moldy remains of a leftover chicken dinner and some rotten fruit are discernible.

A glance into the pantry provides a similar view.

I grab a box of Ferraro Rochers ("Since A.D. 1997. Serving you quality chocolate for over two hundred years!") from the pantry, head back to the fridge, clutch a jar of Nutella chocolate, somehow manage to locate a fork in the mess within one of the drawers, and head back to the couch, grinning.

"Heero, I love you. Marry me and have my babies."

He bores into me with glaring eyes, beleaguered, as I sit back down on the couch. "That's my Ferraro Rocher box. Don't touch it."

"Chill, man. There's like a bajillion more cases in the pantry." I open the box and hand him one of the golden chocolate balls.

He grabs it zealously like I've stolen his most precious treasure.

-x-

To be continued.


End file.
